


Bad Habits

by bacta_junkie



Series: Dameron-Skywalker Family Stories [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - College/University, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8648197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacta_junkie/pseuds/bacta_junkie
Summary: There's a word used to describe a space that's more than empty: Kenopsia, an emptiness of the left-behind. The sort of absence that comes from being alone in a place that should, by all rights, by full of people.
The spectre of winter pressing in on his shoulders is how Poe Dameron finds kenopsia. 
(College AU)





	

There’s a word used to describe a space that’s _more_ than empty. Kenopsia; an emptiness of the left-behind, the sort of absence that comes from being alone in a place that should, by all rights, be full of people. One can experience it, pressing in on one’s shoulders like the spectre of winter in early December, whenever one stands in a stadium the day after the championship, or on a stage an hour after the final curtain call.

And the spectre of winter pressing in on one’s shoulders is how Poe Dameron finds kenopsia.

 Fresh from a summer abroad, desperate to kick a nasty smoking habit he’d picked up somewhere in France, or maybe Belgium, or maybe Harlem, Poe switches to coffee. And switching to coffee brings with it a lot of nasty side effects. Jittery hands and loss of sleep, for one; for another, the unconscious, sinking feeling that a person was well-and-truly Fucked _._

Kicking a smoking habit tends to require subbing in another addiction. For some, that’s caffeine; for Poe Dameron, it’s Finn.

Finn is the morning barista at the university café. To say that Finn is built the way Poe takes his coffee would be misleading; rather, his first day ordering coffee, Poe stutters out a rough description of the sight before him in between heartbeats, and Finn assumes that’s how Poe takes his coffee: tall, strong, and black. Of course, it’s pretty hard to make coffee that’s built like a soldier and bearing a smile that can calm crying children, so it’s probably for the best that Poe managed to keep those descriptors from escaping.

 

 

 

Poe thinks of himself as a pretty charismatic person when he’s not having panic attacks. His friends, clever as they are, can elbow him about his attitude all they like, but there’s an unspoken agreement that the cockiest person in the group gets to decide where they go, and nobody’s quite as good at faking self-confidence as Poe Dameron. So it is with the interest of maintaining his reputation that he decidedly tells _none of them_ about how it took him three weeks to hold down an actual conversation with Finn without turning into a stuttering mess again.

There’s a point where you’re just so tired that you lose the ability to feel shame. As weeks of prepping for graduation- or maybe just too much coffee- begin to take a toll on Poe, despite his best efforts, people begin to notice the cracks. Cracks like falling asleep at your café table before you remember to order your coffee in the first place.

Of course, the smell of strong brew can wake up even the hardiest of slumbering dragons, and Poe is no exception. With a puff of smoke out his nose, he takes the coffee on the table in two shaky hands and downs his first dregs.

Damn that smile.

“You remembered my order,” Poe slurs through the receding cottonmouth that’s taken up residence in his gums.

Finn is just a ray of sunshine. “You’ve been buying the same thing every day since the year began. After a while, you learn your regulars.”

If Poe ever admitted to anyone the way his heart flipped over the word _regulars_ , he’d have to wear a bag over his head for a month. How do you hold down a reputation in this town when all it takes to get around your defenses is smiling and free coffee?

“Y’know,” Finn says when Poe doesn’t respond, “most people order their coffee before they fall asleep. So that they don’t fall asleep,” and doesn’t that have all the subtlety of a freight train?

Poe, despite every notch in his armor telling him that this is a mistake, actually enjoys the awkwardness. It’s endearing, really. He takes another swig of his coffee.

“I think,” he begins, and lets the phrase drop. Trembling hands. Warm liquid. Sunshine. And then, because he’s tired, and has no filter, and because he has no reputation with Finn, he’s just another person, just a guy buying coffee, he says: “I think I’d like to get to know you more.”

And somehow that works. Somehow, Finn manages to siphon away enough of Poe’s time that they become something resembling friends.

And Poe is well-and-truly Fucked _._

 

 

 

Time spent asleep is bad time. It’s time spent not working on his degree, time spent not being productive. Despite a reputation, Poe takes his education very seriously- or rather, he takes the opportunities it offers him very seriously. Where he’s from, you don’t pass up a chance like this, no matter how bad it might make you look to your old friends. If selling out means getting away from places where you’re as likely as not to live through every day, then Poe will gladly stay up all night doing homework. He doesn’t care for the work itself, but he knows that getting a degree means a better job, and a better job means never having to go home, and really, after one-too-many trips to the hospital, after one-too-many nights on suicide watch, there’s not a lot a guy won’t do to make absolutely certain he never ends up there again.

Sleeping feels too much like quitting.

 

 

 

Finn, it turns out, is a very resourceful man. Something about being orphaned young makes it hard to depend on other people, Poe learns. And isn’t it funny, in a family so large they had to say grace twice- one at each end of the table- that Poe learned the same lessons?

Of course, for Finn, not having to worry about outside forcing making you happy means you have plenty of happiness to share with others. Poe’s not surprised that one of his earliest assumptions of Finn has turned out to be true, and he resolves to look up the battalion information when he has a spare moment. If Finn doesn’t want to tell his war stories, Poe won’t press, but he’d still like to know what his buddy went through. He knows what it’s like, perhaps, to lose friends to outside forces, to feel both armed and helpless at the same time.

Finn, Poe finds, is a worrier. Constantly asking after his health, Poe’s never felt so looked-after in his life. He feigns annoyance, because even his mom never helicoptered him like this, but secretly, he’s deeply touched that someone who’s only known him a few weeks can have so much compassion. Finn gives Poe his phone number, his e-mail address, even his apartment address, and tells Poe- Poe, whose entire reputation is built around the image that nothing fazes him- that if he should ever need anything, Poe need only reach out.

War, it seems, did not break Finn.

And if that’s true, Poe thinks, then nothing can.

 

 

 

Some days, when Poe sleeps, he dreams he’s been chained, literally, to his past. He finds himself unable to move, unable to escape, powerless to stop the water at his feet from rising past his face. And even though he can’t drown, not really, not in a dream, he finds that the sensation of breathlessness, of true, ultimate submergence, is almost worse.

 

 

 

There’s a reason Poe’s still alive.

 

 

 

But, Finn is still a worrier. And so, on his recommendation, Poe meets Rey.

It’s not quite one-thing-leads-to-another. Finn recommended that Poe find a replacement for coffee- because as much as Finn does love seeing Poe every morning, he’d rather his buddy find something less keeps-you-up-all-night to get addicted to. He recommends working out; Poe recommends climbing into a garbage can.

Finn, being Finn, laughs uproariously at the comment, and because Poe is Fucked, he allows Finn to convince him to go.

“Right, then; let’s see what you’ve learned,” she says, the South London drawl hiding in her voice, and _oh,_ Poe thinks, _this is more than just exercise._

Rey, rail-thin and sculpted like marble, reminds Poe of some of the girls he knew before he came to college. Nobody would ever think to describe her as wiry- at least not to her face- but that’s the image that comes to mind. There’s an aura of unease that permeates her surroundings, like she’s always looking for the exits, for an escape route. She’s cut her hair short; out of sight, out of mind. It’s a look that betrays _I don’t have the patience to fight my hair every day_ more than _I like the way I look like this._ Poe struggles to imagine Rey caring about her appearance at all, which would be easier to deal with if she weren’t so stunning already.

The entire time they’re sparring, grunting, sweating, Rey continually glances over at Poe, hovering nervously in the corner. With the way she keeps splitting her focus, Poe might think she’d taught Finn to fight herself, if he didn’t know better. He sees how her eyes never remain fixed to one place for long, but in the split second he catches them, Poe can feel the waves of displeasure. Rey seems… _possessive,_ almost; like she’s worried Poe’s going to take advantage of Finn’s generosity. Poe would be offended, if he weren’t so afraid of that same thing.

A bark of laughter catches Poe by surprise; Finn moves faster than a man his size should be able to, at the last second, Rey redirects. With the way she looks over at Poe again, with that same knowing frown, he can’t help but think she’s baiting him. Nevertheless, his own weight used against him, Finn ends up on the floor, panting and laughing, Rey’s elbow pressed menacingly into his throat.

Despite the wariness in her stature, Rey carries herself the same way Finn does, with the sort of calm confidence of someone who gathers strength through self-assurance and then gives everything they can spare to others. She works as the yoga instructor at the university gym during the week, but on the weekends, she’s here with Finn, training.

“Good show,” she says to the room, and helps Finn up, the muscles in her shoulder tensing more from the motion than the exertion. “Maybe try not to telegraph your attacks next time.” And then they start again.

There’s something almost mystical about the way they fight. Finn’s got the training and the strength he earned from his days in the Marines; Rey has the desperate resourcefulness of someone who learns by trial-and-error, by example, and by luck. They’ve clearly done this a number of times, because every time it seems like one of them has an advantage, the other pulls out a leg sweep, or a backflip, or just straight-up launches their opponent clear across the room. Poe catches himself several times worrying someone’s been hurt, but they know each other’s limits. Besides, with the way they move, he’s nearly convinced they’d be able to feel it themselves if the other was seriously hurt. It doesn’t even seem like they’re trying to learn anything, or train for anything; it’s more that they’re just working together- feeling each other’s motions and energy, pushing and pulling like the moon on the tides.

After a half hour of watching, Poe gets dragged into the fray, not quite kicking and screaming, but certainly with some reluctance. By the time they break for lunch, though, he’s had more than a change of heart.

Even after just a few hours, Poe understands why Finn wanted him to try this. At first it was just getting the stress of the semester out of his bones, trying to shake the way the autumn chill settles on him like a coat that’s just a little too heavy. But the more he learns, the more he realizes it’s not about loosening his muscles, or even about setting the nervous energy free; it’s about learning how to carry yourself, how to heal your own wounds.

For the first time, Poe realizes why Finn smiles so much.

Rey, too, seems to be smiling more. Whether she’s getting more used to Poe’s company, loosening up after a good workout, or something else entirely, Poe can’t begin to guess.

And if there’s something like envy settling in his stomach when Finn’s smile is directed at Rey instead of him, then he’s a big enough man to ignore it.

 

 

 

It’s not long after he starts sparring that the dreams change again. The water’s still rising, but Poe finds he no longer minds; he’s learning to swim.

 

 

 

“When did you first realize?” Rey asks, and if it had been anyone else asking, Poe might not have answered.

“My sophomore year of high school; there was a, ah. A friend of my brother’s; he used to buy me cigarettes. I thought he was the coolest.”  Poe imagines there isn’t a blush on his cheeks.

It’s just after sunrise, and they’re perched on the sea wall overlooking the waterfront; there’s a deck of cards laid out on the concrete before them, well-worn and well-loved. Poe had suggested Poker, and Finn, Go Fish; Rey called a compromise, and so they play blackjack.

“This jacket, actually,” Poe says, tugging on the worn brown leather, “it was his. After, after our first time-“ he rubs the back of his neck, looking out at the reflection of the light in the water’s surface- “he told me to keep it. Said it suits me.”

Finn catches the silence before it lands, following Poe’s eyes into the distance. “I had a guy like that in my company. It was his third deployment, and he didn’t just know the area; he knew the locals, the land, the culture. Hell, he took me out to dinner in the Green Zone a few times. I was so impressed when he ordered in Arabic.” He shakes his head fondly.

“What happened to him?” Poe asks, and the answer comes in the forlorn phantom of a smile that Finn flashes at him, and in the betrayed flare of Rey’s eyes.

The cards catch on the wind and half of the deck blows out into the water. Rey laughs harder than Poe’s ever heard, and he tries not to take it as a sign.

 

 

 

With the new routine in place, Poe finds one more friend he can’t tell his gang about. Even the sparring sessions, knowledge of which might actually help his reputation, feel far too intimate to share. But maybe that’s for the best; he’s not sure his old crew would really _get_ the things that Finn and Rey are into. And maybe, maybe it’s not his place to go spilling secrets.

That’s what it feels like, too; like he’s being let in on a series of elaborate secrets. There’s a bubble of domesticity around the three of them. Knowing that Finn and Rey were friends long before he met either of them, the binding, unspoken contract they’d sealed with trips to museums and picnics in the park together almost feels like something he’s intruding on. It feels like he’s becoming something new, something different, something...

And they do these things all the time. As the semester heaves on, Poe finds himself spending more and more time with Finn and Rey and less and less with his previous friends. It’s not that he doesn’t like his old friends; it’s almost like he can’t stop. The trips to the beach, the movie outings, and of course, the fighting- they’re so much more _alive_ than anything Poe’s tried before. He wants to believe it’s just the experience of it all, but nothing can convince him it’s not the company.

There’s a part of Poe that wants desperately to hang on to the old scars. Familiar pains are more comfortable than unfamiliar pleasures, and he’s terrified that if he succumbs to whatever it is Finn and Rey are offering, he’ll drown in it.

 

 

 

So he chooses.

"Is there a reason you’ve come here today?” Finn asks with a lopsided grin.

In the weeks since Finn gave Poe something to get up for, coffee has been on the back of his mind; he hasn’t been back to the café since before he met Rey.

“I can’t, Finn,” he says, the name dropping from his lips like a plea. “I’m so sorry. But it’s for the best. I have to- I have to go.”

At first, it seems like Finn doesn’t understand what he’s hearing. But then, that same forlorn phantom smile graces his features, and Poe lets himself bask in sunlight one final time.

“We were so close,” Finn says, and the smile starts to waver. “We almost got it right. We almost had it.”

Poe can’t bring himself to smile back.

So he doesn’t. He gathers up what little willpower he has left, rebuilds his walls, and walks away. He tells himself the same thing he always has: that he’s bad for them, that they deserve better, that they’re better just the two of them. That they don’t need him.

It’s the first time in his life that the words feel like a lie.

 

 

 

Finn, it turns out, can be broken.

Poe finds this out the hard way.

It’s finals week, and Poe is one day closer to graduation, one day closer to accomplishing something, anything. He’s not even certain what that is anymore, just that if he stops, he has to go home, and if he goes home, he might never find the strength to leave again.

It’s Rey that finds him first. He hasn’t seen either of them in almost a month, and even though he hates how he left the thread hanging, the part of him that Finn found his way into in the first place couldn’t bear to say to their faces that he didn’t want to see them anymore.

There, in the park, with winter’s desolate edge encroaching, Rey sits down next to Poe and talks, more than he’s ever heard her say.

“Finn doesn’t smile anymore,” she tells him, and that’s the thing that gets to him the most. He wouldn’t even believe it if it weren’t for how Rey looks as defeated as she sounds. “Why did you do it?”

Poe’s hands wrap around the weight that his phone has become. A dozen missed calls threaten him, unanswered.

“It was for the best,” he bargains, the last words of a dying man, a man he once was. “He’d be better off without me. You both would.”

“Maybe you’d be better with us,” she fires back, a promise. “You won’t know until you try.”

“Yeah,” he says with a wry laugh. “What have I got to lose?” 

“What _do_ you have to lose?” she says back, and he falters.

“You’re not the first,” she adds when he doesn’t respond. “Finn does this every now and then,” and if nothing else, that explains the looks she gave Poe the first week they’d spent together.

“Finn is the way he is because he wants to be,” she says. “Because he knows what it’s like to be like you.”

When she walks away, it is with the understanding that he won’t follow.

There, as the looming overcast promising December snow bears down on his heavily-coated skin, Poe experiences the sucking emptiness of kenopsia for the first time. There, with the corpse of a cigarette still held in his fingers, Poe realizes for the very first time what it means to be alone, to be left-behind, to be truly, completely lost.

He drowns in it. For hours, he remains there, forcing himself to experience the overwhelming helplessness.

And then, as though the aperture of the universe has abruptly finished adjusting, reality snaps back into focus.

Just as the first flakes of snow reach his shoulders, he stands.

 

 

 

When Rey answers the front door to the address Finn had given him so many weeks ago, Poe is surprised to realize how okay with this he feels. He hadn’t realized they lived together, but he also feels like he knew it already anyway.

Rey fixes him a cup of coffee, just the way he likes it. “How did you know how I take my coffee,” he implies, but they both know the answer.

“It’s the same way I take mine,” she says, and he nods like she’s imparted some sage wisdom on him.

"You could share, you know,” she adds. “We could share.”

She leaves to retrieve Finn, and Poe takes it upon himself to examine the Christmas tree in the corner. Anything to keep his mind from racing.

They live together. Of course they live together.

Maybe they could share. He’d be okay with that.

Finn is a sight to behold, so tall and broad and yet bundled up in an enormous sweater that might be too big on a hill giant.

Poe’s first thought upon rising to meet Finn’s presence is that Finn looks like he’s lost sleep, and he punishes himself for that. But Finn hugs him nonetheless. Finn hugs Poe like he’d thought Poe was dead. Finn, Poe thinks guiltily, knows better than most what those hugs feel like.

It strikes Poe at that moment that Finn had been broken all along, just like he had been, just like, perhaps, Rey had been, too. Maybe that’s what the bubble had been made of in the first place. Maybe that’s what sharing is for.

They sit down and have a long conversation over coffee. Finn smiles at Poe. Rey smiles at Poe. Poe smiles at both of them. And they smile at each other.

It’s all the same smile.

Poe is well-and-truly Fucked.

Finn and Rey take one hand each and lead him to bed. It’s late, and it’s finals week, and they’re all exhausted on so many levels.

When Poe sleeps, he no longer swims. Instead, he flies.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as a final exam for my Creative Writing class. Haven't gotten the grade yet; fingers crossed.


End file.
